[This is a soulmate AU where soulmates feel each other's physical pains and receive the same physical scars/markings.]
Oikawa Tooru always thought it was weird how the type of changes that happen over time always felt like they had arrived suddenly, when the sunlight called forth a new day. Like he went to bed thinking the world was one way and woke up looking at everything different. He went to sleep a dork and woke up a middle school idol. Volleyball was fun and overnight it became a crazed passion. His years-long friendship with Okano Marri had been pure and platonic but felt like it changed in one day. Things were simple and then, suddenly, they weren't.
The day that Oikawa punched Ushiwaka in the face in middle school was probably the best and worst day of his life. He hadn't really meant for their confrontation to go that far. For it to escalate beyond taunts over power and choices and promises of defeat, but after his fist connected with the soft tissue of Ushijima Wakatoshi's cheek, he truly believed none of that mattered anymore because he was invincible. (It was simple really.) It was a high the likes of which he'd never felt before. In that single moment, he was certain he could never, ever, regret taking down that monster — even if it was just a single peg. But when he walked back to his two childhood best friends, waiting for him in the hallway outside the arena, to regale them with his minor victory, the smile fell off his face. (And then suddenly it wasn't.)
Middle school had never felt awkward for Tooru. He'd joke sometimes, just to piss off his two best friends, that "God's favored child" just didn't have to face the hardships of puberty the way others did. Sure, it was easy for them to see the minute ways everyone around them were changing — the way others were growing and falling in love. But, for fourteen-year-olds, the trio was surprisingly uninterested in the ways of love. Who had time to worry about soulmates and the future when there was volleyball to be played — when there were seamless friendships to fall into? The world outside their group, filled with young people desperate to find their soulmates and fall into ever after, hardly existed to them.
Despite the willful ignorance of all things relating to love, Oikawa Tooru and Iwaizumi Hajime had, to some degree, always been vaguely aware of the marks visible on their female counterpart. (Though that awareness did seem to come to them suddenly. Somewhere between coming to know the ways of the world and realizing they weren't beyond the clutches of fate.) The bruises, the welts and the sore muscles made it all-too-clear that their best friend had a future with a soulmate waiting for her. It was a simple reminder of what was already written in the stars; on a red thread, measured, cut and spun to a predetermined will.
It was somewhere near the beginning of their third year of middle school that the two boys began to suspect, with shared looks each time she fell victim to the unintended cruelty of destiny. There was something in the pattern of pain that felt familiar.
They had started early and had been unforgiving — the bruises on her arms, the muscle pains all along her body, the tingling on the tips of her fingers. There were days when Okano Marri didn't want to get out of bed because of her soulmate's pain. And there were moments that watching her suffer made Oikawa and Iwaizumi almost feel bad for their own soulmates, out there in the world receiving the pains of their own training. (It was a complicated consciousness knowing that you're not only hurting yourself on your path toward greatness.)
But it was that day, outside the arena when the afterglow of physical victory had given way to a different monster, that cemented all the facts together and forced Oikawa to see that the worst possible plausibility was the reality they were living in: his best friend was Ushijima Wakatoshi's soulmate. The evidence was all over her face — literally — because as he returned triumphant, ready to tell his tale, Iwaizumi was standing over Okano, sprawled across the concrete, holding on to her face with fat tears in her eyes. And he was pretty certain, if he held his knuckles up to her cheek, the red marks would match the shape of his hand perfectly.
The way the information passed through him struck so powerfully that it left him feeling dazed and fuzzy, like that time he had stuck his sister's hair pin in an outlet just to see what would happen. Suddenly, Oikawa regretted punching that straight-faced bastard in the face. He regretted the anger that always seemed to boil up inside of him every time that olive-haired giant stepped into his path. Before, his anger had always been so elementary: a scream against every way in which Ushijima represented all his own shortcomings. It was about revenge and pettiness and power, but outright knowing that Shiratorizawa's ace was the cause of Marri's pain, suddenly made it all righteous. Right then and there, he resolved that he really, deeply, hated Ushijima Wakatoshi.
Somehow, though, he also immediately started hating him even more.
"Oi, where have you been," Iwaizumi grumbled as he caught sight of the brunet walking their way. Oikawa immediately screwed up his face in shock and concern as he turned his eyes toward the small girl in Iwaizumi's arm and hid his throbbing hand behind his back.
"What did you do to Okano," he said with a feigned growl as he dropped next to them and pushed her fingers away from her face to examine the damage. Talk about projecting, he thought.
"I didn't do anything," Iwaizumi said in his typical pissed-off tone. "Her soulmate must have pissed someone off pretty bad."
"What a jerk," Oikawa responded, brushing Marri's hair behind her ear before helping her up. "He never cares about how his life hurts her."
It's not as if it was an untrue statement. It was something Oikawa and Iwaizumi had thought for some time now. Okano Marri was not a frail girl — no friend of those two oafs could be — but her soulmate seemed to push both of their bodies past their abilities and did so without any regard to the woman on the other side of his red string of fate. He didn't care if his extra workout after practice left her with legs so weak and wobbly that she had to be helped out of bed in the morning. He didn't care that those 100 serves, and the 100 more after, made it so she couldn't lift her arms above her head. He didn't care. He had a goal. Life was simple. (Even if it wasn't.)
The two boys had come to hate their best friend's soulmate long ago, but now that Oikawa knew it was Ushijima that abhorrence seemed to overflow. How dare that superpowered bastard do this to Marri. How dare he look smug on the court and push his body to the absolute limit while Oikawa's best friend suffered alongside him. How dare Ushijima keep stealing such precious things from him.
It was then that Oikawa made a plan and a promise to himself (because once he had his mind set on something, he'd be damned if anything got in his way). He was going to take something precious away from Ushijima. Oikawa would make Ushiwaka hurt the way he hurt Oikawa and Okano so many times, because that unfeeling, calculating, power-focused giant didn't deserve her, didn't deserve her smiles and encouragement and he sure didn't deserve to be tied to her forever.
In the moment, he wasn't concerned with the logistics of his plan, nor the ramifications. There was something he could do to get even while protecting his friend from a future of being a begrudging mistress to volleyball.
Oikawa Tooru was going to steal away Ushijima Wakatoshi's soulmate. It was simple, really. (Even though it wasn't.)
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Early on, Okano Marri had set a list of rules for herself to live by and, though they may be small in number, they existed to make her life easier. One: never leave home without an umbrella. Two: always buy tampons before they run out. Three: coffee should never count as a meal. Four: always wear shorts under your skirt. Five: don't ever, for even one minute, look at Oikawa Tooru or Iwaizumi Hajime as anything more than your stupid best friends.
The rules were set in stone the moment she walked into her first year of middle school and realized, all at once, that the summer had been far too kind to her two best friends. They were the same stupid boys but with upgraded armor and she swore, right there in that moment, that she would never (ever, ever, ever, ever) think about those two idiots like that again. Period. (It had to be that simple.)
And Okano Marri was a woman of her word.
Things began to change, though, that night after she fell to the ground, outside the middle school volleyball spring tournament qualifiers, and tried her damndest not to cry in front of those two boys who never stopped worrying about the damage her soulmate was inflicting.
At first she passed off Oikawa's new attitude as that of a doting best friend hyper-concerned with the health of someone who got second-hand punched in the face. (I mean, weird circumstances call for such things, right?) It was natural to worry, she reasoned, and Tooru had always been more outwardly doting than Hajime. Then he started treating her like other girls instead of the girl he watched struggle through a particularly bad fight with puberty. He stopped teasing her the way he teased Iwaizumi and started scolding her like an overprotective father.
"Ri-Riiiiii," he'd whine at her. "Your skirt is so short today! How did Auntie let you out like that?" or "You're far too pretty to be covering your face with all that stuff!" as he'd attempt to swipe at her face with a handkerchief.
It was like she had gone home that night with two best friends and woken up with another father — except she got the feeling that this new one was more like a host club Tamaki Suoh than a doting Spirit Albarn. (If nothing else, the whole thing was overly complicated.)
The dynamics of their trio only shifted more in the first year of high school as Tooru seemed to ooze the kind of confidence that left lovestruck women in his wake and left Marri and Hajime to minimize the damage in the setter's storm path. It had been a no brainer for the three of them to continue on to the same place. There was no grey area when it came to loyalty and there was a fat chance any one of them would end up at the school with the boy's fated rival. Even if they, maybe, had a better volleyball team.
High school also reinforced all the budding annoyances of middle school for both Iwaizumi and Okano as their friend continued on his war path to prove himself. To prove that he had what it takes to become the best. To prove that his hard work was worth something. To prove that he was worth all the attention he was given. To take all the complications in his world and make them bow to the simple force of his will power. All of it accumulated in two very annoyed friends having to make sure that their third didn't crumble apart under the pressure of his own burdens.
As Oikawa became wise in the ways of love, his incessant flirting she had always played off as simply an annoying part of his new personality, suddenly became endearing and his words that had always seemed so hollow to her began to make her blush — not that she'd ever let him see that as she'd scoff and turn her head away from him, feigning disinterest, or even disgust. She had rules to adhere to. Her rules. The rules of a happy life. The rules of a predestined future.
The girl's that hovered around Oikawa, though, like he was the center of their solar system, didn't seem to bother with the decrees of the fates. They'd walk around with concealer masking every bruise, as if they didn't have love waiting for them down the road, without a thought spared toward the person baring all their pains. And Marri would scoff from the balcony of the gymnasium as she watched his fan girls pinch their arms with hopeful eyes set up upon the volleyball captain, hoping to see him flinch in time. And if not with them, then maybe their friend beside them a minute later. No matter the severity of the infliction, the outcome was never in their favor and she would laugh internally wondering if the pain of fate could even dare to break his concentration while he served.
Still trouble began to brew when she broke the first rule, handing her umbrella to her mother on a tepid Monday morning as the elder woman flew through the house in a mad dash to make her flight on time. It's funny how little things pile up and leave you stranded under the awning of a school building praying the rain could stop just long enough for you to run home. But the rain doesn't answer prayers.
"Don't you have a thing about umbrellas," he had asked her as he walked up from behind and angled his black umbrella over her head. She had whispered back about rules sometimes needing to be broken while watching the stormwater rush down from the dips in the correlated metal awning. He had smiled at her as they walked their way back home and she talked about how maybe it was time to break another rule — because midterms started the next day and her mother wasn't home to cook a meal anyway, so maybe coffee would just have to do.
He doubted she would though, because Okano Marri was a woman of her word. (Until she wasn't.)
Marri had always seen her relationship with Tooru as something like carbon. It wasn't beautiful in it's own sense, but it had the ability to be both the softest and hardest naturally occurring element in their life. They pushed each other. They kept each other in check and they brought balance to each other as the world did it's best to topple them over the edge. Their friendship was a constant — as natural as exhaling with every breath taken — but, just like with carbon, pressure from the outside world could make them into anything it wanted and the outcome would always be circumstantial. Would they be coal or diamond?
She didn't know what was to come, that day she gave her umbrella to her mother. Didn't know that, just because some rules were meant to be broken, there would still be consequences, that the rule breaking would be a catalyst to change the carbon in her life. Because even if her statutes could be cast aside, the laws of nature still stood and fate, despite telling her one thing, had set in motion something that couldn't be stopped.
There was now a crack in her foundation that she tried to ignore. She'd only strayed from her rules the one time (and for good reason), but a crack appeared nonetheless and a little crevice was simply all Oikawa needed to slip in and wreak havoc in a way that only he could.
It started with just a walk in the rain, but turned to two. Then three. Until she'd rather have him than the umbrella in her bag any day. Then it was the compliments and gestures — the healthy snacks gifted on test days and hot chocolates when it rained — as if he was on a mission to make her abandon the crackling foundation beneath and to prove to the universe around them that the rules had nothing on his prideful ambition. That he would keep working until he had her heart.
And by the time he'd fully worked his magic she was ready to give it away. But... she couldn't, right? She couldn't possibly... No, she'd only misstepped once. And fate? Well, fate would always have it's way. It was as simple as that. (Of course it wasn't.)
Everything was spinning around Okano in her third year, when she finally found herself holding on to the railing of the upper level of the gym with her eyes glued to the inter-team scrimmage taking place below. She'd had coffee for breakfast after rushing to the corner store to buy the right supplies to stave off a period that had come much too soon and nothing was right. It was raining, her mother still had her umbrella, her uniform was soaked and her bicycle shorts were still laid out on her desk at home. Tears streamed down her face like she was actually facing the end of days, slowly moving her right hand to her left forearm and pinching lightly with her eyes closed because she already knew the answer. She'd known since the punch. Was reminded every time her gaze crossed that white brace on his knee.
(But if you're going to break so many rules at once, you may as well break them all. Hit it until it breaks.)
When she finally opened them, hand still hovering over her arm, his were on her and she knew she could never escape. She would never want to. Nothing in the world could replace the way he looked at her as if she was the only thing worth having in the entire world — as if the stars could fall from the sky and the rivers stopped flowing and he would still be happy as long as he was with her.
And Marri? She would rebel against any mandate telling her that whatever was connecting their hearts just wasn't meant to be because she would follow that look in his eyes until the planets cease to be. Because there is nothing in the world quite like being loved by someone you trust entirely and nothing like loving them in return.
He was her best friend and she swore she would never cross that line, but she was ready to say she wasn't a woman of her word. She had fallen relentlessly in love with him.
"Aren't you worried about your soulmate," Tooru whispered as he broke away from her lips and fought to keep his composure.
Marri opened her eyes and a soft smile spread on her lips. Her hands reached up to push his hair away from his eyes before cupping his cheek and bringing him close enough to nuzzle her nose against his. "No matter who he is — he could never be you."
Fate could have its rules because love, when it really matters, is simple. (Even if it isn't.) And carbon, with the right kind of pressure, becomes diamonds. The hardest natural material on this earth.
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Ushijima Wakatoshi had been of the firm belief that the world was built of black and white. There were rights and wrongs, is and is nots, the way things were and the way things would never be, things needed and not. He wanted to play volleyball, so he would. He wanted to be successful, so he would work for it and it would happen. If he needed to practice, then he would. If he had to concentrate, then he did.
The world wasn't built up of hyperbole and hypotheticals. Reality was as it is, nothing more, and that was all that mattered.
As far as Ushijima was concerned, his last intensive camp with Shiratorizawa was an unparalleled success. His team was meshing in ways they never had, his serve had increased in power and they were more than prepared for whatever was coming their way in the spring tournament qualifiers.
So as he leaned back in his bus seat and closed his eyes, he was sure there was nothing that could possibly break his spirit, nothing that could break his concentration. Sighing, he closed his eyes and began to dream of victory. It wasn't as if he had to play make believe — he'd already been a champion before and he'd likely be one again.
He knew how the air would feel: tight with pride and jubilation. He knew his jersey would be damp, and maybe a bit musty, but nothing would outweigh the feeling of that cool medal hanging around his neck. There would be echoing applause in the gymnasium as he stepped forward to receive that large trophy and then, later, the coach would treat them to dinner then demand serving drills from them. It was the ideal dream because it was built of reality, but it was cut short as he woke with a start, the image of him reaching out for the trophy dispersed like mist over the lake in the morning.
His eyes jolted open as he was ripped from his dream and they scanned everything around him as he tried to determine the cause of his awakening. His drowsy brain briefly took in the images of a sleeping Tendo next to him, the light snores of Semi in front of him and the soft beeping of Goshiki's game behind him. None of the immediate surroundings should have stirred him from slumber. With an unsatisfied frown, Ushijima turned toward the bus window and attempted to force himself back to sleep to no avail.
The moment he pushed his lids closed a sharp pain radiated near his collar bone and he jolted upward again. His first thought was bone cancer, but as he looked at his reflection in the glass and the pain continued, those thoughts faded away. Just below the left strap of his white tank top sat a series of purple bruises painting their way across his flesh and as he turned his head; they trailed up his neck.
Now, Ushijima may look like a loveless, unsullied athlete whose head is only full of thoughts of volleyballs, but he knows a hickey when he sees one. He'd never seen so many at a single time though, especially on his own flesh — but well, logically, it wasn't really his flesh was it?
Within moments, his skin was covered in the reddish bruises and, for once, rationally didn't provide him with any answers. Logic held no home in the place where these actions occurred and there seemed to be a careless declaration behind the quantity, as they continued to pop up around his neck and torso, each accompanied with a light stinging.
They screamed to him, "Look here. This person is mine. Your soulmate is mine." And as he began to feel the stinging on his thighs, his heart began to sink. It wasn't that he ever spent much time thinking about the soulmate on the other end of his pain. Maybe a fleeting concept of them as a few days each month he was reminded of their existence, but nothing more than that.
He'd never really thought of a soulmate as something he needed. They hardly held the same weight as his dream to play professionally or the necessity of food. They just were and there was never really more to it than that.
If they were what his future was meant to be, then they would find him and things would be as they were meant to.
But, it seemed, he'd lost his future without a chance to fight for it at all.
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Looking down at Marri in his bed, her half lidded eyes hazily focused on him, shining with loving trust, Oikawa felt like his heart was going to burst. He loved her. Oh God, how he loved this woman he knew was destined for another man. This woman who didn't give a second thought to that soulmate she was cosmically tied to — who loved Oikawa as deeply and as unabashedly as he loved her — because whoever that soulmate was, he wasn't her childhood best friend. He wasn't her Tooru.
Love couldn't be simpler than this. Fate couldn't have anything in mind but this. This wonderful something that felt like it came together over night but had the makings of the kind of endearment that could only come from growing up together and would last until the sea covered up every last trace of humanity. This culmination of everything that wasn't and shouldn't be making the perfect absolution from the ties of destiny.
As they became one, in the awkward but loving way that tends to happen when the first time occurs in the same room where they read their first chapter books together and first began to wonder who they would be when they grew up, Marri sighed into his ear and told him he was all she would ever need.
There were so many things Oikawa had learned to regret in his life. He regretted not being true to himself. He regretted always putting himself down. He regretted taking his friends for granted and he even regretted almost punching Tobio. But he never once regretted his choice in following his friends to high school and he sure as hell never regretted falling in love with Marri, though it hadn't been the plan — that silly plan that had seemed so simple to him at the time.
Soulmates be damned, she was the missing piece of his self-loathing heart and even though he started this whole thing believing he was stealing something from a rival, it was his heart that was stolen in the end. There were so many things that led to this moment — to the two of them sinking hopelessly into the abyss of each other — so many rules broken, fates tested and diamonds made but none of it would have been possible if he hadn't gotten to love her first. If he hadn't followed his two friends to that school of teal and white.
So fuck all that noise about that monster ace and his "should have gone to Shiratorizawa." This time, maybe just this once, Ushijima Wakatoshi should have gone to Aoba Johsai.
It really was as simple as that.
(You know it wasn't.)
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[Did I write this whole one shot just for that line?
...yes I did.
Am I a little ashamed of myself?
Also yes.]